It’s bad enough that Right-To-Die advocates are using Terri’s situation to encourage the rest of us to sign advance directives. But their exploitation of her does not stop there. Terri Schiavo is surrounded by major players in the Right-To-Die movement. Michael Schiavo chose well when he hired George Felos as his attorney and Dr. Ronald Cranford as an expert neurologist. There are frightening links between them and others involved with Terri. See if you can follow this convoluted web of connections among the people surrounding Terri Schiavo.
Dr. Ronald Cranford was a member of the board of the former Euthanasia Society of America, which eventually merged with Partnership for Caring. Partnership for Caring lists Mary Labyak as a current member of their Board of Directors; she is also the CEO of the hospice where Terri Schiavo lives. Both George Felos and Barbara Sheen Todd have served on the Board of Directors for that same hospice; Mr. Felos was in fact the Chairman of the Board until Terri Schiavo was moved there. Mrs. Todd serves as a Pinellas County commissioner. Judge George Greer served with her for eight years; it is he who has ordered Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube removed. He also appointed a supposedly "neutral" neurologist, Dr. Peter Bambakidis of Ohio, to break the tie between doctors who disagreed about Terri’s diagnosis. Dr. Bambakidis had never before testified in a case like Terri’s, but his brother and George Felos have both served as officers in the American Hellenic Education Progressive Association.
So in a case where clean hands and independence ought to be mandatory, professional associations abound. No disabled person could be well served by these supposedly coincidental connections. How can people with so many affiliations be allowed to decide the death of Terri Schiavo?
Many of these individuals are leading activists in the Right-To-Die movement. They are exploiting Terri Schiavo in hopes of advancing their agenda. If Michael Schiavo and George Felos succeed in starving Terri to death, a legal precedent will have been set that will give guardians far greater leeway to order the starvation and dehydration of their wards. It is instructive to review the activities of the key players trying to kill Terri Schiavo.
Dr. Cranford has been an instrumental force in redefining the determination of death. Death was once defined as the time when the heart permanently stopped beating. Through Dr. Cranford’s activism, it was changed to coincide with the cessation of brain waves. The motivation for this redefinition was so that human organs would survive the death of the patient and be available for transplant. When writing in 1982, Dr. Cranford was highly critical of pro-lifers in general and Catholics in particular as he presented his arguments for this redefinition. His critics? They thought his new criteria might lead to the eventual acceptance of euthanasia. History has proven his critics to be right. Interestingly enough, Dr. Cranford’s published definition of the Persistent Vegetative State differs substantially from Florida law. Court transcripts show that Judge George Greer used Dr. Cranford’s definition in assessing Terri, rather than Florida’s stricter definition.
George Felos is proud to be a "crusader" in the Right-To-Die movement. In his book Litigation as Spiritual Practice (Blue Dolphin Publishing, 2002), he describes his religious beliefs and spiritual practices. These include engaging in a form of telepathy which he calls "soul-speak" to discern the wishes of comatose patients. Using the power of the mind, he believes we are all capable of creating even an automobile for ourselves "out of the ether." While on a commercial plane flight, he once wondered how it would feel to die; he claims his thoughts caused the plane to descend towards a crash, and that God audibly admonished him afterward. His book also explains the motivation of the Right-To-Die movement: its adherents know "that keeping one alive against his wishes — artificially perpetuating the body once the spirit is ready to depart — is a defilement of life’s final rite of passage." This explains his obvious distress when he declared Terri Schiavo was "abducted from her deathbed and her death process" by the actions of Florida’s governor. Distressed or not, it is wrong for him to use the legal system to force his fanatical religious views on Terri, who is Roman Catholic.
Partnership in Caring (linked to both Dr. Cranford and Mary Labyak) is an organization wedded to the Right-To-Die movement. Their website carries a message about the Terri Schiavo case without ever mentioning that Mary Labyak’s hospice is Terri’s home. What does Partnership for Caring say about the Schiavo case? The controversy in her case stems from a misunderstanding of "evolving terms." Did you get that? The Right-To-Die movement is freely admitting that medical terminology can "evolve" and cause the "misunderstanding" plaguing Terri’s family. And their suggestion for avoiding this? Write a Living Will so that your family will not have the same conflicts Terri’s did. They know, even if you don’t, that the literature you find will guide you toward allowing the medical profession to decide when you should die.
http://tinyurl.com/4u9fd
Partnership in Scaring is more like it. Halloween is early this year.